People with a personal health budget and their stories

Personal health budgets aim to give people with long term health needs more choice and control over their health care. In this section, people in the Department of Health's personal health budgets pilot programme share their experiences so far. They describe in their own words what the process is like, what they spend their money on and how they decided on this. The stories also include the perspectives of family carers and health care professionals. We hope the stories illustrate the kind of choices people can make if they have a personal health budget, and the positive impact it can have on their health and lives.

The stories on this page have been taken from the personal health budgets DVD Personal health budgets: stories from people in the pilot programme. The DVD contains eight films, and includes an introduction by Minister of State for Care Services Paul Burstow.

The films on the DVD can be viewed or downloaded from this site using the links below. A limited number of hard copies on DVD are also available. Pilot sites can order directly from Prolog using the email address already provided to them. Health care professionals in PCTs outside the pilot can order via the DH orderline (opens new window), or call 0300 123 1002 and quote product code PHBDVD. The public can email personalhealthbudgets@dh.gsi.gov.uk (one DVD per person; please state your preferred quantities if you are an organisation).